Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

What did you call him—not a voice at all? All right, we will get the transcript. But there is no need to be embarrassed about it, because this was the first policy that was released by the Rudd opposition. It was something that you were proud of not so long ago. Maybe some realism is beginning to intervene. I will say, if Labor is embarrassed about its IR policy, that it is a step out of the Stone Age. Let us hope that embarrassment leads to realisation, that realisation leads to change and that change leads to the embracing of AWAs and an industrial relations system that will generate future income for Australia.

One of the reasons that productivity in the mining industry at the moment looks as though it has actually turned down is that the mining industry is going through a huge investment phase. If you go through a huge investment phase, if you are in a phase where large investment of capital is going out before you get volume, it shows as productivity declining. Does that mean that the mining industry has suddenly become unproductive? No, it means it is going through a huge investment cycle which, when it leads to more volumes, will actually dramatically increase productivity.

One of the other reasons you find that at times of full employment you get temporary downturns in productivity is that you begin to bring back into the workforce people who were previously marginalised—people who have been locked out, people whose skills are not great. But, as you bring them into the workforce, as they learn those skills over a period of time, their productivity matches that of other employees. So you always find that at a time in the cycle when you have near to full employment.

With good industrial relations, with good investment, as we make sure that we increase the capacity of the Australian economy, I believe that we have more productivity to unleash in this economy. But I tell you this: we will only unleash productivity in this economy if we are flexible and forward looking. If we go back to centralised industrial relations, if we go back to the old conflict between labour and capital that the ACTU and all of their minions in this parliament believe in, that will be going back to the 20th century, the 19th century or worse. We are about the 21st century, about flexibility. We are the coalition: we build for the future!

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